


Just Reward

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Chì bì | Red Cliff (2008)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-24
Updated: 2011-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows what she wants. She wants her just reward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Reward

She waits for him in the pigeon loft. The darkness is soft with the cooing of the birds, the rustle of feathers. Their smell hangs in the air—dust and damp wood and the faint acrid odour of bird-shit. It’s a far cry from the perfumes that her maids encourage her to wear, but she prefers the stink of reality.

Especially now. Especially after her time in the Wei encampment, sharing a tent with dozens of men, no opportunity to bathe, privacy snatched in makeshift stables or cattle pens. She’s become accustomed to unwashed hair and the smell of her own sweat like never before. She always thought she was tough, wielding a sword and accompanying her brothers on hunts, but now she truly knows what it’s like to be a man.

She stiffens when she hears his tread on the stairs. Halfway up, he pauses. She can picture him tilting his head in thought, his eyes narrowing. Perhaps he won’t come any further. But he does. He climbs up, his robes shadowed by the twilight. He keeps his back to her, walks over to the window. He clucks to the birds and they answer him, some bobbing their heads, others fluttering to his raised hand, to his shoulders, like pale ghosts.

He turns, and she studies his profile, the sharpness of his nose and the upsweep of his hair, the smile on his lips. “Good evening, Lady Shangxiang.”

She breathes out a laugh. “How did you know?”

“The birds. They were quieter than usual. That meant someone was up here. Someone they trusted.” He flicks his fingers and the dove flaps back to its perch. He lifts his hawk’s wing fan and gently brushes at the bird on his shoulder. It drifts out into the night, the music of its wing-beats fading.

He faces her. “You had something else to tell me? Something that perhaps slipped your mind earlier?”

Shangxiang steps out of the concealing darkness. She sees surprise go through him at her mode of dress, and his reaction pleases her. It takes a lot to surprise Zhuge Liang.

He’d never let his serene expression slip before. Of all the men she’d encountered until recently, he was the only one who didn’t care that she was a tomboy. He seemed to admire it, her recklessness and spirit, so unbecoming for a woman. He smiled at her outspokenness—not as if he found her amusing, but as if he shared the joke.

She knows she can trust him, and because he understands her, values her contribution in a way the Viceroy and her own brother can’t comprehend, she wants this to be more.

Zhuge Liang stares at her. “Lady,” he says, and dips his head.

She’s dressed as a man, as a recruit, as a soldier of Wei. Without the roll of cloth wrapped around her middle, the uniform tunic hangs loose on her. She’s left off the armour, thinking it would give the wrong impression, but her hair is tied in a scruffy, masculine topknot. She refused Xiao Qiao’s urging to bathe. She wanted to come here and meet with Zhuge Liang as a man, to read his eyes and demand her just reward for the risks she took infiltrating Cao Cao’s camp.

“Don’t call me that,” she says, lifting her chin in challenge.

He keeps his head down. “What do you wish of me, Shangxiang?”

“Not that name. Call me—call me...” She pauses, grasping for a man’s name. In the Wei camp she called herself Piggy. It’s not flattering, not even funny now. Then she has it: “Call me Sun Shu Cai.”

The name of the soldier elevated to battalion commander by the Prime Minister just because of his prowess at kickball. The soldier who’d almost caught her sending secret messages to Zhuge Liang. The man who’d talked to her, eaten with her, protected her, helped her to escape. The man who’d been her friend.

She loved him, Shangxiang realised. Not in the romantic sense, the way Xiao Qiao loved the Viceroy; no, she loved Shu Cai in a brotherly way, as comrades in arms. He’d accepted her. He was simple and open and honest, the opposite to the men who ruled the world around her. Shu Cai was as unlike Zhuge Liang as water and fire. He took everything at face value and looked no deeper, and he was happy with what he saw. She envied him, and wanted to be like him.

“Sun Shu Cai,” Zhuge Liang says, his voice soft. He lifts his head, flicks the hawk’s wing fan. Comes closer. “Shu Cai, how may I serve you?”

She stiffens her spine, stands tall. “I am but a lowly foot soldier. There should be no talk of service.”

“Ah, my apologies.” Zhuge Liang smiles. “We are equals, then.”

Shangxiang nods. It’s hard to curb her natural impulse. She wants to use her rank and demand his obedience, but at the same time she wants his friendship.

“How can I help you, Brother Cai?” he asks, and he’s close enough to her now that she can smell his scent, windblown and river-touched and entirely masculine, and his eyes are very bright as he looks at her, not judging, just waiting.

She swallows. “I want you.”

He doesn’t react. For a long moment he stands before her, not even breathing, it seems, and then he exhales, lifts his fan, touches the long feathers to his lips. “You are the sister of the Duke of Wu.”

“I am a common soldier.” She forces the words out. “I want this. I want you. As a reward.”

“A reward?” His expression clouds. “No, brother—my lady. Your reward is the safe-keeping of your land. Take your reward in the knowledge that Cao Cao will be defeated thanks to your courage and ingenuity. The gratitude of a kingdom—is that not enough?”

“No.” She states it boldly, then steps forward and takes his free hand, placing it over her breast. A woman’s reaction. She tries to think like a man, reframes her desire. Holds his wrist and slides his hand down her body, between her legs. She wishes she had a cock, but surely he can feel her arousal anyway, the heat in her sex.

He lets her hold his hand against her, then he withdraws it. “You are the sister of the Duke of Wu,” he says again, and his voice is soft and regretful. “You are promised to Liu Bei.”

“I don’t care about Liu Bei. He has other women. He already has heirs.” Shangxiang tries to sound reasonable. “I won’t let him touch me. I want it to be you.”

“No.”

She doesn’t want him to have a sense of honour. Not now. “Kong Ming,” she says, her heart fluttering at her audaciousness, “there is another way. A way that—so I have heard—men enjoy with one another. Pretend I am the soldier Shu Cai. Take me like that.”

Zhuge Liang is still. Thoughtful. Considering.

She begins to hope.

“I cannot,” he says. “Forgive me.”

Shangxiang wants to weep, but that is a womanly response and she doesn’t want to seem weak in front of him. “Your devotion to your lord is that strong?”

He gives her a small, sad smile. “To both of them.”

“Both?” And then it strikes her, and she stares, wonders how she missed it. “My brother,” she whispers, her lips numb. “You love my brother.”

Zhuge Liang bows. “I cannot dishonour him. I cannot dishonour Liu Bei. And I will not dishonour you. No matter that it is your wish. I simply... cannot.”

She exhales heavily, like a man. “If not you, then what shall be my reward?”

“The gratitude of a kingdom.” He tilts his head, smiles at her. “And perhaps, Lady, I might be permitted to call you brother.”


End file.
